The 3000 block of Greer Road is one of four blocks the Weekly profiled
in its 10th anniversary edition. The neighborhood was built in
the decade after World War II to house veterans and their families.
While the neighborhoods of Palo Alto, as a whole, have experienced
major physical transformations over the past 25 years, this block
has mostly remained the same -- Eichlers on one side, stuccos
on the other and nary a monster home in sight.

Part of the reason is that many long-time residents still reside
here, even as they've grown land-rich while Palo Alto housing prices
skyrocketed. Few cashed in and moved, preferring the area's climate
and lifestyle to anywhere else on Earth. One of the few recent
stucco homes that sold doubled in price in a decade, going from
$345,000 in 1994 to $689,000 in 2003.

In 1989, our story featured the inhabitants of eight of the block's
16 homes. Five of those eight remain in the same spot 15 years
later, like pebbles stubbornly sticking to the ground as the Matadero
Creek, which cuts through the block in the south end, flows toward
the San Francisco Bay. Fifteen years ago, residents said the block
wasn't experiencing the monster-home madness just beginning to
ebb into Palo Alto. Few homes had been vacated and few new neighbors
had moved in. But the sense of community had disappeared when the
children on the block moved away.